


the darkest hour comes right before dawn

by queenlevana



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, F/M, Inspired by Hadestown, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), juke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:53:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27920314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenlevana/pseuds/queenlevana
Summary: Julie lays her heart bare for the boys during Stand Tall, and it almost works, except Luke doesn't make it back.And so goes our tale of Orpheus and Eurydice.
Relationships: Alex & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie, Julie Molina & Alex & Reggie & Willie, Julie Molina & Luke Patterson, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 10
Kudos: 57





	the darkest hour comes right before dawn

**Author's Note:**

> I made a Spotify playlist that goes with this, and you can find it here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5Z6ncQc0Lj8BIKJstdD2ec  
> It'll make more sense for chapter 2, but it fits chapter 1 as well.

Julie Molina felt broken.

She was curled up on the ground in her room after running from the studio, with a million thoughts running through her head - a million different ways the day could’ve played out. She could’ve booked the gig earlier. She could’ve fought Caleb off. She could’ve not performed, and then maybe the boys would’ve at least been together, and she would be okay with that.

And yet none of those things happened.

Instead, she’d lost Luke. He’d been there for a moment, desperate to hold on, and yet he’d slipped away. Somehow it felt like her own fault. There was a rational voice in Julie’s head, one crying, _there was nothing you could have done_ , and yet it was buried by _I didn’t do enough. I should’ve done more._ Why _didn’t I do more?_

She wanted to stand up and scream. Throw the photos on her nightstand to the ground, grab her clothes from the closet and rip them apart, open up the window and ask the night sky, “What did I do to deserve this?” But she didn’t even have the energy to move, and so she stayed on the ground, knees to her chest, numb.

At some point Reggie and Alex had come in the room. She hadn’t realized when they’d sat beside her, Reggie placing an arm around her shoulder. She vaguely remembered crying into him, because she could do that now, and Alex rubbed her back and told her everything was going to be okay. He almost sounded convinced, but the waver in his voice at the end revealed the lie. Still, Julie didn’t blame him. She knew they were just as broken, despite the fact that the curse Caleb had placed on them had been lifted.

Somehow the hours passed, and Julie had cried herself to sleep. She woke up to find a blanket draped around her and Reggie resting his head against her shoulder. Alex had laid down in front of them and was fidgeting with the tassels on the rug on the ground.

“What-” Julie began hoarsely, her throat dry. She swallowed and tried again. “What time is it?”

“12:30,” Alex replied, turning to look at her. “Flynn showed up, and we explained what happened. She had your dad call the school and say you were sick.”

School. In the chaos, Julie forgot she was expected to go to school and learn like nothing had happened. She vaguely recalled that her calculus make-up test was scheduled for today and decided it was a problem for tomorrow, or maybe next week.

Alex and Reggie both looked at her, and it reminded her of how her dad and Carlos and Flynn and everyone else she knew had walked eggshells around her in the months after her mom had died.

But then it struck her that Luke wasn’t gone like her mom was.

She stood up abruptly, letting the blanket around her drop to the ground, and Reggie jumped up with her. Before the boys could say anything, she spoke. “I’m not giving up on him. According to what you guys said, he’s still at the club, right?”

Alex sat up, nodding slowly. “I mean, yeah, but we have no idea…Caleb could…he’s too powerful. How the hell are we supposed to go back in there?”

“Luke would find a way, if it was us. You know that,” Reggie argued. “Even if it was impossible.”

“Exactly. Which means we’re not gonna let him go,” Julie stated. There was the smallest bit of hope in her, a flame flickering in her chest, and she would not let fate put it out. “Willie knows how to get in, right? Can we talk to him?”

“It might be risky,” Alex said. “But yeah. I could probably find him and get him to come down to the studio.”

.

After the initial shock Willie experienced from seeing Alex and Reggie, they all sat in a circle on the ground in front of the piano. There was no time for an introduction between Julie and Willie, or an explanation of how she could see him - not that she had one, anyways - because Julie didn’t know how long they had, which meant they needed to act now.

“Look, I know this could get you into a lot of trouble with Caleb,” Alex said to Willie. “You have no obligation to do this for us.”

“Are you kidding?” Willie responded. “I told you, Alex, nothing would stop me from helping you. If you guys are diving headfirst into this, then so am I.”

“So how do we get in?” Julie asked.

“You don’t exactly get in. You’re invited in,” Willie explained. “The club is so exclusive that only the wealthiest lifers are allowed, and that’s after they sign their souls away. For ghosts, they have to be approved by Caleb specifically before being placed on the guest list. I don’t know how he does it, but no ghost can walk in, nor can they poof in or outside the walls. Besides, it’s not like he’d let the guys just waltz back in after last night.”

“So, what? There’s no other option?” Julie realized she may have said that too forcibly when Willie winced, but she didn’t care.

“Not exactly, but there’s no other safe way.” Willie took a deep breath. “Last time I offered to help you guys, I pretty much damned you. Maybe this is a bad idea.”

This time it was Reggie who responded. “Why don’t you explain what it is, and then we decide,” he suggested.

Willie looked uncomfortable, but he spoke anyways. “There’s one way in, through a series of tunnels. I don’t know if it was like some old catacombs, or a cave, or what. But there’s a few miles of underground space that leads directly into the basement of the Hollywood Ghost Club. The downside is…it’s kind of…haunted?”

“Dude, we’re ghosts. We do the haunting, and you’ve seen Reggie. He’s not all that scary,” Alex pointed out. “How bad can it be?”

“Bad. Seriously bad,” Willie warned. “These aren’t normal ghosts. Sometimes, when Caleb gets his revenge, it doesn’t make a ghost vanish. It curses them. These souls are lost causes. They’re filled with malice and will attack you on sight, unless you can calm them down for long enough to slip by.”

“So it’s like walking into a trap,” Julie said. “How do we calm the ghosts down?”

“No idea. Light, maybe?” Willie suggested. “Nobody’s ever been down there long enough to find out what works without getting stuck. I knew a guy once who…who never came back.” Willie said this last bit quietly, and everyone else went silent.

“Where’s the entrance?” Julie finally asked, and everyone turned to look at her.

“Maybe we should talk about this,” Alex started, but Julie cut him off immediately.

“You guys don’t have to come. But I’m going and you can’t stop me. Willie, tell me where the entrance is,” she demanded.

“What? No! You can’t just make that decision,” Alex argued. “I don’t know how you suddenly went on the warpath, but this can’t be the answer. We have to think this through, right Reggie?”

The poor bassist looked torn. “I don’t know, guys…” he mumbled, and Willie put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

Alex glared at the two boys. “Look, I love Luke. But I love you too, Julie. And I’m not okay with the possibility that we lose someone else while saving him.”

“Well, we don’t have any other choice, do we?” Julie snapped.

Nobody said it, but they all knew the other option, the safe option. They could not go. And yet Julie refused to put those thoughts into words, because it would be admitting defeat. She stared Alex in the eye, daring him to say it, but after a moment he looked down, knowing that in good conscious, he couldn’t.

“Look, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t go,” Alex said instead. “But we need to carefully examine our options. Strategize. Come up with some sort of concrete plan where we don’t come out worse than we go in, like last time.”

“And what do you suppose we do, then?” Julie said. “There’s not exactly a search engine built for ghost questions.”

“I could go in,” Willie offered. “It’s the least I could do. Maybe when Caleb’s not paying attention, I’ll find the club side of the entrance underground and scout it out a bit.”

“No way,” Alex argued. “It’s bad enough that you’re here helping us and that Caleb could find you at any moment.”

To this, Reggie agreed. “This is our fight, not yours.”

Willie looked ready to argue more, but Julie said, “The boys are right. The three of us will go in together. That’s our best bet. Hopefully, if we stick together, we’ll be fine.”

Willie glanced at them all before nodding. “Alright. Here’s where the entrance is.”


End file.
